The 310th Sydney Mining Club – Lunchtime Event
Thursday 4 June 2026 at 12.15pm at the Ivy Ballroom
Structural Deficits: The Strong Case for Alumina and Uranium
Presenting Alligator Energy CEO Andrea Marsland-Smith and Metro Mining MD Simon Wensley.
After a very successful launch of the new Leading Edge Showcase series – thanks everyone for making it a great event – our July Lunch is back at the Ivy with two fascinating projects in Uranium and Bauxite (if only nuclear energy was legal – they could make aluminium together).
Alligator Energy (ASX: AGE)
CEO Andrea Marsland-Smith joins us with the latest news from two fronts… First a field an in-situ uranium leach recovery trial at Samphire that is delivering better-than-expected results, and secondly, a greenfield discovery at Big Lake that hit the jackpot with Australian Mining Prospect’s Discovery of the Year in 2025.
More than half of the world’s uranium is produced by injecting fluids into the strata and drawing out the precious cargo in a ‘pregnant fluid’. Samphire is Alligator’s flagship. It’s a low-cost, low-footprint in-situ recovery project 20km southwest of Whyalla on SA’s Eyre Peninsula and could be our next producer. The pilot plant came in on time and under budget. The Field Recovery Trial kicked off in early 2026 and the first well pattern results are back: 70% uranium recovery across approximately 70 pore volume exchanges, meeting and in several areas exceeding the Scoping Study assumptions. The second well pattern reports in Q3, feeding a Bankable Feasibility Study targeted for early 2027. Mining lease permitting and an updated Mineral Resource Estimate are both in progress now.
At Big Lake a maiden drill program in 2024 returned SA’s first major greenfield uranium discovery since 2007, including intersections of 35m at 117ppm uranium and 20m at 110ppm. Nice work Alligator – get me a discovery and make it snappy!
Uranium spot cleared US$100 a pound in January 2026. Meta has signed up for 7.8 gigawatts of nuclear capacity to feed its AI operations. Microsoft is back at the reactor door. The markets tightending and industry can’t drill its way out of deficit overnight. Alligator is a great position.
Metro Mining (ASX: MMI)
Managing Director Simon Wensley will take us 3,000 kilometres north into the wilds of Western Cape York bauxite to Bauxite Hills Mine where it has a booking direct-shipping operation feeding hungry Chinese alumina refiners. A simple barge and transhipment operation earned Metro a record net profit after tax of $119.8 million in the just the first half of 2025. It shipped 6.6 to 7.1 million wet metric tonnes for 2026, and didn’t flinch when Tropical Cyclone Narelle took a week out of March. Guidance held.
Debottlenecking work is underway to push toward 8 million tonnes per annum beyond 2026, and exploration drilling across four new tenements is building out the next resource chapter.
Aluminium is for every electric vehicle, every solar panel frame, every piece of defence hardware, building window and doors and power transmission. Guinea feeds roughly 70% of China’s bauxite imports but is pulling back on raw exports and building its own refinery. But Australian bauxite, shipped reliably from a stable jurisdiction, is looking more valuable by the month. Metro too, in the right spot.
Two great stories. Not to be missed!
